Philips

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Royal Philips Electronics), more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

Electronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...

company.

Philips is one of the largest electronics companies in the world. In 2010, its sales were €25.42 billion. The company employs 119,000 people in more than 60 countries.

Philips is organized in a number of sectors: Philips Consumer Lifestyle (formerly Philips Consumer Electronics and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care

Personal care

Personal care or toiletries is the industry which manufactures consumer products used for beautification and in personal hygiene.-Subsectors:Subsectors of personal care include cosmetics and feminine hygiene....

History

Gerard Leonard Frederik Philips was a Dutch industrialist, co-founder of the Philips Company as a family business in 1891. Gerard and his younger brother Anton Philips changed the business to a corporation by founding in 1912 the NV Philips' Gloeilampenfabrieken...

and his father Frederik as a family business. Frederik Philips, being a banker in Zaltbommel

Zaltbommel

Zaltbommel is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. The town of Zaltbommel was first mentioned as "Bomela" in the year 850. Zaltbommel first received city status in 1231, which status was renewed in 1316....

, financed the purchase and setup of a modest, empty factory building in Eindhoven, where Philips started the production of carbon-filament lamps and other electro-technical products in 1892. This first factory has been adapted and is used as a Museum devoted to light sculpture

In 1895, after the first difficult years and going nearly bankrupt, Gerard and his father brought in the 16-years younger brother Anton

Anton Philips

Anton Frederik Philips co-founded Royal Philips Electronics N.V. in 1912 with his older brother Gerard Philips in Eindhoven, the Netherlands...

. Having earned an engineering degree, he started work as a sales representative, but soon contributed many important business ideas. After that, the family business began to expand rapidly, resulting in 1907 in the foundation of the N.V. Philips’ Metaalgloeilampfabriek (the Philips Lightwire-bulb Factory Inc) in Eindhoven, followed in 1912 by the foundation of the N.V. Philips' Gloeilampenfabrieken. (the Philips Light-bulbs Factories Inc). After Gerard and Anton Philips changed their family business by founding the Philips Incorporation, they laid the base of the later electronics multinational.

In the 1920s, the company started to manufacture other products, such as vacuum tubes. In 1939 they introduced their electric razor

Razor

A razor is a bladed tool primarily used in the removal of unwanted body hair through the act of shaving. Kinds of razors include straight razors, disposable razors and electric razors....

Philishave was the brand name for the electric shavers manufactured by the Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care unit of Philips . In recent years, Philips had extended the Philishave brand to include hair clippers, beard trimmers and beard shapers...

A Stirling engine is a heat engine operating by cyclic compression and expansion of air or other gas, the working fluid, at different temperature levels such that there is a net conversion of heat energy to mechanical work....

.

Philips Radio

On 11 March 1927 Philips went on the air with shortwave radio station PCJJ

PCJJ

PCJJ was a pioneering shortwave radio station operated by Philips Laboratories of Holland, a division of Philips Electronics....

(later PCJ) which was joined in 1929 by sister station PHI. PHI broadcast in Dutch to the Dutch East Indies

Dutch East Indies

The Dutch East Indies was a Dutch colony that became modern Indonesia following World War II. It was formed from the nationalised colonies of the Dutch East India Company, which came under the administration of the Netherlands government in 1800....

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

) while PCJJ broadcast in English, Spanish and German to the rest of the world.

The international program on Sundays commenced in 1928, with host Eddie Startz hosting the Happy Station show, which became the world's longest-running shortwave program. Broadcasts from the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

were interrupted by the German invasion in May 1940. The Germans commandeered the transmitters in Huizen to use for pro-Nazi broadcasts, some originating from Germany, others concerts from Dutch broadcasters under German control.

. Instead' the two shortwave stations were nationalised in 1946 and renamed as Radio Netherlands Worldwide, the Dutch International Service. Some PCJ programs, such as Happy Station, continued on the new station.

World War II

The Battle of the Netherlands was part of Case Yellow , the German invasion of the Low Countries and France during World War II. The battle lasted from 10 May 1940 until 14 May 1940 when the main Dutch forces surrendered...

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

was to take place the following day. Having prepared for this, Anton Philips

Anton Philips

Anton Frederik Philips co-founded Royal Philips Electronics N.V. in 1912 with his older brother Gerard Philips in Eindhoven, the Netherlands...

and his grandson Franz Otten, as well as other Philips family members, fled to the United States, taking a large amount of the company capital with them. Operating from the US as the North American Philips Company, they managed to run the company throughout the war. At the same time, the company was moved (on paper) to the Netherlands Antilles

Netherlands Antilles

The Netherlands Antilles , also referred to informally as the Dutch Antilles, was an autonomous Caribbean country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, consisting of two groups of islands in the Lesser Antilles: Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao , in Leeward Antilles just off the Venezuelan coast; and Sint...

Frederik Jacques "Frits" Philips was the fourth chairman of the board of directors of the Dutch electronics company Philips, which his uncle and father founded...

, the son of Anton, was the only Philips family member to stay in the Netherlands. He saved the lives of 382 Jews by convincing the Nazis that they were indispensable for the production process at Philips. In 1943 he was held at the internment camp for political prisoners at Vught

Vught

Vught is a municipality and a town in the southern Netherlands. It is a town where lots of commuters live and has recently been named "Best place to live" by the Dutch magazine Elsevier.-Politics:...

for several months because a strike at his factory reduced production. For his actions in saving the hundreds of Jews, he was recognized by Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....

Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....

".

Postwar era

After the war the company was moved back to the Netherlands, with their headquarters in Eindhoven. Many secret research facilities had been locked and successfully hidden from the invaders, which allowed the company to get up to speed again quickly after the war.

A television set is a device that combines a tuner, display, and speakers for the purpose of viewing television. Television sets became a popular consumer product after the Second World War, using vacuum tubes and cathode ray tube displays...

Philips Records is a record label that was founded by Dutch electronics company Philips. It was started by "Philips Phonographische Industrie" in 1950. Recordings were made with popular artists of various nationalities and also with classical artists from Germany, France and Holland. Philips also...

The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...

tape in 1963, and it was wildly successful. Compact cassettes were initially used for dictation machines for office typing steno

Shorthand

Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed or brevity of writing as compared to a normal method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek stenos and graphē or graphie...

graphers and professional journalists. As their sound quality improved, cassettes would also be used to record sound and became the second mass media alongside vinyl records used to sell recorded music.

Philips introduced the first combination portable radio and cassette recorder, which was marketed as the "radiorecorder," and is now better known as the boom box. Later, the cassette was used in telephone answering machine

Answering machine

The answering machine or message machine, also known as the telephone answering machine in the UK and some Commonwealth countries) and previously known as an ansaphone, ansafone, or telephone answering device is a device for answering telephones and recording callers' messages.Unlike voicemail,...

s, including a special form of cassette where the tape was wound on an endless loop. The C-cassette was used as the first mass storage device for early personal computers in the 1970s and 1980s. Philips reduced the cassette size for the professional needs with the Mini-Cassette, although it would not be as successful as the Olympus

Olympus Corporation

is a Japan-based manufacturer of optics and reprography products. Olympus was established on 12 October 1919, initially specializing in microscope and thermometer businesses. Its global headquarters are in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, while its USA operations are based in Center Valley, Pennsylvania,...

A Microcassette is an audio storage medium introduced by Olympus in 1969. It uses the same width of magnetic tape as the Compact Cassette but in a much smaller container. By using thinner tape and half or a quarter the tape speed, microcassettes can offer comparable recording time to the compact...

. This became the predominant dictation medium up to the advent of fully digital dictation machines.

In 1972 Philips launched the world's first home video cassette recorder, in England, the N1500. Its relatively bulky video cassettes could record 30 minutes or 45 minutes. Later one-hour tapes were also offered. As competition came from Sony

Sony

, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

Betamax was a consumer-level analog videocassette magnetic tape recording format developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain -wide videotape in a design similar to the earlier, professional wide, U-matic format...

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

group of manufacturers, Philips introduced the N1700 system which allowed double-length recording. For the first time, a 2-hour movie could fit onto one video cassette. In 1977, the company unveiled a special promotional film for this system in the UK, featuring comedian Denis Norden

Denis Norden

Denis Mostyn Norden CBE is a former English comedy writer and television presenter. After an early career working in cinemas, he began scriptwriting during World War II. From 1948 to 1959, he co-wrote the successful BBC Radio comedy programme Take It from Here with Frank Muir...

.

The concept was quickly copied by the Japanese makers, whose tapes were significantly cheaper. Philips made one last attempt at a new standard for video recorders with the Video 2000

Video 2000

Video 2000 was a consumer videocassette recorder system and analog recording videocassette standard developed by Philips and Grundig to compete with JVC's VHS and Sony's Betamax video technologies...

system, with tapes that could be used on both sides and had 8 hours of total recording time. As Philips only sold its systems on the PAL standard and in Europe, and the Japanese makers sold globally, the scale advantages of the Japanese proved insurmountable and Philips withdrew the V2000 system and joined the VHS Coalition.

Philips had developed a laser disk early on for selling movies, but delayed its commercial launch for fear of cannibalizing its video recorder sales. Later Philips joined with MCA to launch the first commercial laser disk standard and players. In 1982, Philips teamed with Sony to launch the Compact Disc

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

and later Blu-Ray, which Philips launched with Sony in 1997 and 2006 respectively.

In 1991, the company's name was changed from N.V. Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken to Philips Electronics N.V. At the same time, North American Philips was formally dissolved, and a new corporate division was formed in the U.S. with the name Philips Electronics North America Corp.

In 1997 the company officers decided to move the headquarters from Eindhoven to Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

Koninklijk or Koninklijke is an honorary title given to certain companies and non-profit organizations in Belgium and the Netherlands, by the King or Queen in the respective country. It was first introduced by Louis Bonaparte in 1807, the King of the Netherlands at that time, who awarded the title...

e Philips Electronics N.V. The move was completed in 2001. Initially, the company was housed in the Rembrandt Tower

Rembrandt Tower

The Rembrandt Tower is an office skyscraper in Amsterdam. It has a height of 135 metres, 35 floors and it has a spire which extends its height to 149.85 metres. It was constructed from 1991 to 1994. The building's foundation required piles 56 metres long and two metres in diameter...

, but in 2002 they moved again, this time to the Breitner Tower. Philips Lighting, Philips Research, Philips Semiconductors (spun off as NXP in September 2006) and Philips Design, are still based in Eindhoven. Philips Healthcare is headquartered in both Best, Netherlands (just outside Eindhoven) and Andover, Massachusetts

Andover, Massachusetts

Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It was incorporated in 1646 and as of the 2010 census, the population was 33,201...

, United States (near Boston).

Sale of semiconductors

As a chip maker, Philips Semiconductors was among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders.

In December 2005 Philips announced its intention to make the Semiconductor Division into a separate legal entity. This process of "disentanglement" was completed on 1 October 2006.

On 2 August 2006, Philips completed an agreement to sell a controlling 80.1% stake in Philips Semiconductors to a consortium of private equity

Private equity

Private equity, in finance, is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange....

KKR & Co. L.P. is an American-based global private equity firm, specializing in leveraged buyouts, based in New York. The firm sponsors and manages private equity investment funds. Since its inception, the firm has completed over $400 billion of private equity transactions and was a pioneer in...

AlpInvest Partners is a private equity investment manager and at the end of 2009 globally managed over €42 billion ....

. The sale completed a process, which began December 2005, with its decision to create a separate legal entity for Semiconductors and to pursue all strategic options. Six weeks before, ahead of its online dialogue, through a letter to 8,000 of Philips managers, it was announced that they were speeding up the transformation of Semiconductors into a stand-alone entity with majority ownership by a third party. It was stated then that "this is much more than just a transaction: it is probably the most significant milestone on a long journey of change for Philips and the beginning of a new chapter for everyone – especially those involved with Semiconductors".

Philips was one of few companies that successfully made the transition from the electrical world of the 19th century into the electronic age, starting its semiconductor activity in 1953 and building it into a global top 10 player in its industry.

Bain Capital LLC is a Boston-based private equity firm founded in 1984 by partners from the consulting firm Bain & Company. Originally conceived as an early-stage, growth-oriented investment fund, Bain Capital today manages approximately $65 billion in assets, and its strategies include private...

Apax Partners LLP is a global private equity and venture capital firm, headquartered in London. The company also operates out of eight other offices in New York, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Tel-Aviv, Madrid, Stockholm, Milan and Munich. The firm, including its various predecessors, have raised...

announced that they had signed definitive commitments to join the expanded consortium headed by KKR that is to acquire the controlling stake in the Semiconductors Division.

On 1 September 2006, it was announced in Berlin that the name of the new semiconductor company founded by Philips is NXP Semiconductors.

2010 to present

The Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium or NatLab was the Dutch section of the Philips research department, which did research for the product divisions of that company. Originally located in the Strijp district of Eindhoven, the facility moved to Waalre in the early 1960s...

has scaled down. As of 2010, the company does not try to be innovative in consumer electronics through fundamental research, but continues to improve its many consumer lifestyle products.

Due to net profit slumped 85 percent in Q3 2011, Philips has announced to cut 4,500 jobs to match part of an Euro800 million ($1.1 billion) cost-cutting scheme to boost profits and meet its financial target.

Compact Cassette

In 1962 Philips invented the compact audio cassette medium for audio storage. Although there were other magnetic tape cartridge systems, the Compact Cassette became dominant as a result of Philips's decision to license the format free of charge.

Laserdisc

Laserdisc was a 30 cm disc designed with MCA meant to compete with VHS

VHS

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

and even replace it. It was not as generally popular as VHS, because of the initial investment costs of players, somewhat higher costs of movie titles, and the read-only format. But like Betamax, it enjoyed extensive success among serious video collectors. The technologies created for Laserdisc would later be used again for the Compact Disc.

Compact Disc (CD)

Although Philips' and MCA's Laserdisc project never reached the VHS mass market level, Philips still thought the format should be able to succeed, and, in collaboration with Sony

Sony

, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....

, launched the smaller CD in 1982.

Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc (DVD)

The DVD (Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc), the eventual successor of the CD (Compact Disc), met a long road of setbacks. Philips wanted to continue with the CD in a new format called MultiMedia Compact Disc (MMCD), while another group (led by Toshiba

Toshiba

is a multinational electronics and electrical equipment corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. It is a diversified manufacturer and marketer of electrical products, spanning information & communications equipment and systems, Internet-based solutions and services, electronic components and...

) was developing a competing format, then named Super Density (SD) disc. Their representatives approached IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

A file system is a means to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device which contain it. A file system organizes data in an efficient manner and is tuned to the...

. IBM also learned of Philips' and Sony's initiative. IBM convinced a group of computer industry experts (among them Apple, Dell

Dell

Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation based in 1 Dell Way, Round Rock, Texas, United States, that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest...

, etc.) to form a working group. The Technical Working Group (TWG) voted to boycott both formats unless they merged to prevent another format war

Format war

A format war describes competition between mutually incompatible proprietary formats that compete for the same market, typically for data storage devices and recording formats for electronic media. It is often characterized by political and financial influence on content publishers by the...

The videotape format war was a period of intense competition or "format war" of incompatible models of consumer-level analog video videocassette and video cassette recorders in the late 1970s and the 1980s.- Overview :...

). The result was the DVD specification, finalized in 1995. The DVD video format was first introduced in Japan in 1996, later in 1997 in the U.S. as limited test run, then across Europe and the other continents from late 1998 onwards.

Blu-ray Disc

Blu-ray Disc, yet again primarily developed by Philips and Sony, utilizes blue-violet

Blue laser

A so-called blue laser is a laser that emits electromagnetic radiation at a wavelength of between 360 and 480 nanometres, which the human eye sees as blue or violet. Diode lasers which emit light at 445 nm are becoming popular as handheld lasers. Light of a shorter wavelength than 400 nm is...

coloured diodes to create an even shorter wavelength beam than CD or DVD. Because of this, the capacity is much more than that of CD or DVD, being 25 GB single-layered or 50 GB dual-layered.

Corporate affairs

In 2004, Philips abandoned the slogan "Let's make things better" in favour of a new one: "Sense and simplicity".

ASML is a Dutch company and the largest supplier in the world of photolithography systems for the semiconductor industry. The company manufactures machines for the production of integrated circuits , such as RAM and flash memory chips and CPUs.-Products:...

ATOS is a high density railway transport management system of an unprecedented scale. The system has been continuously built up in stages after the online operation of its first station commenced in 1994 and successfully operating since then...

PolyGram was the name of the major label recording company started by Philips from as a holding company for its music interests in 1945. In 1999 it was sold to Seagram and merged into Universal Music Group.-Hollandsche Decca Distributie , 1929-1950:...

The Seagram Company Ltd. was a large corporation headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that was the largest distiller of alcoholic beverages in the world. Toward the end of its independent existence it also controlled various entertainment and other business ventures...

Philips Records is a record label that was founded by Dutch electronics company Philips. It was started by "Philips Phonographische Industrie" in 1950. Recordings were made with popular artists of various nationalities and also with classical artists from Germany, France and Holland. Philips also...

continues to operate as part of UMG, its name licenced from its former parent.

CEOs

Gerard Leonard Frederik Philips was a Dutch industrialist, co-founder of the Philips Company as a family business in 1891. Gerard and his younger brother Anton Philips changed the business to a corporation by founding in 1912 the NV Philips' Gloeilampenfabrieken...

Wisse Dekker is a Dutch businessman. He was the CEO of Philips from 1982 to 1986. From 1988 until 1992 he was chairman of the European Round Table of Industrialists. He is known for his philanthropy of the undefeated Pomona College team: The Benchwarmers.-External links:...

Cor Boonstra is mainly known as president of the Board of Directors of Philips .- Biography :At the age of 16, he quit his study at the Hogere burgerschool and started to work for Unilever. In 1974 he started to work for Sara Lee, where he ultimately became the president of the Board of...

Gerard Kleisterlee is a former President and Chief Executive Officer of Royal Philips Electronics .-Biography:Born in Germany in 1946 to a mixed Dutch and German couple, he was raised in the Netherlands...

François Adrianus "Frans" van Houten is the successor to Gerard Kleisterlee, as Chief Executive Officer of the Dutch company of Royal Philips Electronics , taking over the position on April 1, 2011.-Biography:...

Acquisitions

Companies acquired by Philips through the years include Amperex, Magnavox

Magnavox

Magnavox is a US electronics company founded by Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen, who invented the moving-coil loudspeaker in 1915 at their lab in Napa, California. They formed Magnavox in 1917 in order to market their inventions....

Signetics, once a major player in semiconductor manufacturing, made a variety of devices which included integrated circuits, bipolar and MOS, the Dolby circuit, logic, memory and analog circuits. They developed microprocessors like the 2650, the bipolar 8X300 and had licensed Motorola 68000...

Mullard Limited was a British manufacturer of electronic components. The Mullard Radio Valve Co. Ltd. of Southfields, London, was founded in 1920 by Captain Stanley R. Mullard, who had previously designed valves for the Admiralty before becoming managing director of the Z Electric Lamp Co. The...

ADAC Laboratories was a Silicon Valley medical device company that was acquired by Philips in 2000. ADAC specialized in nuclear medicine and nuclear imaging devices. It was founded in 1970 and In 1996, it was the recipient of a Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award It was acquired by Philips for...

, ATL Ultrasound, portions of Westinghouse and the consumer electronics operations of Philco

Philco

Philco, the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company , was a pioneer in early battery, radio, and television production as well as former employer of Philo Farnsworth, inventor of cathode ray tube television...

Sylvania Electric Products was a U.S. manufacturer of diverse electrical equipment, including at various times radio transceivers, vacuum tubes, semiconductors, and mainframe computers...

. Philips abandoned the Sylvania trademark which is now owned by Havells Sylvania

Havells Sylvania

Havells Sylvania is an international designer and manufacturer of lighting products. It has plants throughout Europe, Asia, North Africa and Central and South America, and is one of the few lighting companies that produces both lamps and lighting fixtures....

except in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and the USA where it is owned by the Osram

Osram

Osram, founded 1919, is part of the industry sector of Siemens AG and one of the two leading lighting manufacturers in the world. The name is derived from osmium and Wolfram , as both these elements were commonly used for lighting filaments at the time the company was founded...

A light-emitting diode is a semiconductor light source. LEDs are used as indicator lamps in many devices and are increasingly used for other lighting...

manufacturer Lumileds became a subsidiary of Phillips Lighting in August 2005 and a fully owned subsidiary in December 2006. In 2000, Philips bought Optiva Corporation, the maker of Sonicare

Sonicare

Sonicare is an electric toothbrush manufactured by Philips.-Product and technology:The brush head vibrates at hundreds of times per second, with the latest models at 31,000 strokes per minute...

electric toothbrushes. The company was renamed Philips Oral Healthcare and made a subsidiary of Philips DAP. In 2006 Philips bought out the company Lifeline Systems headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

. In August 2007 Philips acquired the company Ximis, Inc. headquartered in El Paso, Texas

El Paso, Texas

El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States...

for their Medical Informatics Division.
In October 2007, it purchased a Moore Microprocessor Patent (MPP) Portfolio license from The TPL Group.

Respironics, Inc. is a medical supply company that specializes in products that improve respiratory functions. It is based in the Pittsburgh suburb of Murrysville.-History:...

announced a definitive merger agreement pursuant to which Philips will commence a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Respironics for US$66 per share, or a total purchase price of approximately €3.6 billion (US$5.1 billion) to be paid in cash upon completion.

On 21 February 2008 Philips had completed its acquisition of VISICU Baltimore, Maryland through the merger of its indirect wholly owned subsidiary into VISICU. As a result of that merger, VISICU has become an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Philips. VISICU was the creator of the eICU concept of the use of Telemedicine from a centralized facility to monitor and care for ICU patients.

Spinouts

A spin-out, also known as a spin-off or a starburst, refers to a type of corporate action where a company "splits off" sections of itself as a separate business....

from Philips Electronics. In May 2011, Polymer Vision designed and manufactured a 6-inch screen that displays black and white e-ink text and images at 800×600 pixels and can roll around a tube the circumference of a dime.

APRICO Solutions is a venture within Philips Intellectual Property and Standards.

Philips also forayed into the pharmaceuticals market in a company best known as Philips-Duphar (Dutch Pharmaceuticals). Philips-Duphar made products for crop protection, veterinary medicine and products for human use. Duphar was sold to Solvay

Solvay (company)

Solvay S.A. is a Belgian chemical company with its head office in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. It was founded in 1863 by Ernest Solvay to produce sodium carbonate by the solvay process. Since then the company has diversified to two major sectors of activity: chemicals and plastics...

, now Solvay Pharmaceuticals. In subsequent years divisions have been sold of, by Solvay, to other companies (crop protection was sold to UniRoyal, now Chemtura

Chemtura Corporation

Chemtura Corporation is a marketer of specialty chemicals, polymer products, and processing equipment for a variety of industries. The company formed in 2005 from the merger of two other corporations: Great Lakes Chemical Corporation of West Lafayette, Indiana, and Crompton Corporation of...

and the veterinary division was sold to Fort Dodge, a division of Wyeth

Wyeth

Wyeth, formerly one of the companies owned by American Home Products Corporation , was a pharmaceutical company. The company was based in Madison, New Jersey, USA...

).
Philips also acquired Dynalite, an Australia based lighting control company in 2009, in order to provide its customer a complete lighting solution.

Sports, sponsorships and naming rights

Traditionally Philips has a vested interest in sports, originally as a means to provide a healthy form of recreation for its employees. In 1913, in celebration of the Centenary of Dutch independence from France, Philips founded a sports club called Philips Sport Vereniging (Philips Sports Club), or PSV, as it is now known. The sports club
encompasses all kinds of sports, but is currently most famous for its Premier League football team and its swimming team. Philips owns the naming rights to Philips Stadion

Philips Stadion

Philips Stadion is the 35,000 seater stadium of football club, PSV Eindhoven. It was first inaugurated on 31 August 1913. The stadium is located in the Philipsdorp part of the Eindhoven borough of Strijp, close to Eindhoven's city centre....

In the private sector, naming rights are a financial transaction whereby a corporation or other entity purchases the right to name a facility, typically for a defined period of time. For properties like a multi-purpose arena, performing arts venue or an athletic field, the term ranges from three...

Philips Arena is an indoor arena in Atlanta, Georgia.Completed in 1999 to replace The Omni, at a cost of $213.5 million, it is home to the Atlanta Hawks, of the National Basketball Association, and the Atlanta Dream, of the Women's National Basketball Association...

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

and to the Philips Championship, the premier basketball league in Australia, traditionally known as the National Basketball League

National Basketball League (Australia)

The National Basketball League, also known as the iiNet NBL Championship for sponsorship reasons, is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in Australasia....

. Between 1988 and 1993 Philips were also the major sponsors of The Balmain Tigers, an Australian rugby league team.

Outside of sports Philips sponsors the Philips Monsters of Rock festival, held in many countries all over the world.

Operations

Philips also used to sell major household appliances (whitegoods) under the name Philips. After selling the Major Domestic Appliances division to Whirlpool Corporation it changed via Philips Whirlpool and Whirlpool Philips to Whirlpool only. Whirlpool bought a 53% stake in Philips' major appliance operations to form Whirlpool International. Whirlpool bought Philips' remaining interest in Whirlpool International in 1991.

Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV is both an industry standard and promotional initiative for hybrid digital TV to harmonise the broadcast, IPTV, and broadband delivery of entertainment to the end consumer through connected TVs and set-top boxes...

Astra is the name for the geostationary communication satellites, both individually and as a group, which are owned and operated by SES S.A., a global satellite operator based in Betzdorf, in eastern Luxembourg. The name is sometimes also used to describe the channels broadcasting from these...

OpenTV is an interactive television company founded in 1994. Its main business involves the sale of set-top-box operating systems and software. On March 28, 2010 OpenTV became a fully owned subsidiary of the NAGRA Kudelski Group and officially delisted from the NASDAQ, where it was previously...

and ANT Software) that is promoting and establishing an open European standard (called HbbTV) for hybrid set-top boxes for the reception of broadcast TV and broadband multimedia applications with a single user interface.

Australia

Philips Australia was founded in 1927 and has been involved in many activities over the years, especially manufacturing. Philips Australia has its headquarters in North Ryde, New South Wales

North Ryde, New South Wales

North Ryde is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. North Ryde is located 15 kilometres north-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Ryde...

Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

Brazil

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

. In 1929, Philips started to sell radio receivers. In the 1930s, Philips was making its light bulbs and radio receivers in Brazil. From 1939 to 1945, World War II forced Brazilian branch of Philips to sell bicycles, refrigerator

Refrigerator

A refrigerator is a common household appliance that consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room...

An insecticide is a pesticide used against insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against the eggs and larvae of insects respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and the household. The use of insecticides is believed to be one of the major factors behind...

s. After the war, Philips had a great industrial expansion in Brazil,and was among first groups to establish in Manaus

Manaus

Manaus is a city in Brazil, the capital of the state of Amazonas. It is situated at the confluence of the Negro and Solimões rivers. It is the most populous city of Amazonas, according to the statistics of Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, and is a popular ecotourist destination....

Markham is a town in the Regional Municipality of York, located within the Greater Toronto Area of Southern Ontario, Canada. The population was 261,573 at the 2006 Canadian census...

.

For several years, Philips manufactured lighting products in two Canadian factories. The Windsor, Ontario

Windsor, Ontario

Windsor is the southernmost city in Canada and is located in Southwestern Ontario at the western end of the heavily populated Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. It is within Essex County, Ontario, although administratively separated from the county government. Separated by the Detroit River, Windsor...

, plant opened in 1971. It produced A19 lamps (including the "Royale" long life bulbs), PAR38

Parabolic aluminized reflector light

A parabolic aluminized reflector lamp is a type of electric lamp that is widely used in commercial, residential, and transportation illumination. Usage includes locomotive headlamps, aircraft landing lights, and residential and commercial recessed lights...

Trois-Rivières means three rivers in French and may refer to:in Canada*Trois-Rivières, the largest city in the Mauricie region of Quebec, Canada*Circuit Trois-Rivières, a racetrack in Trois-Rivières, Quebec...

, Quebec plant was a Westinghouse facility which Philips continued to run it after buying Westinghouse's lamp division in 1983. Philips closed this factory a few years later, in the late 1980s.

China, People's Republic of

In early 2008 Philips Lighting, a division of Royal Philips Electronics, opened a small engineering center to adapt the company's products to vehicles in Asia.

Philips also has a Light Factory in Hong Kong, with 11 automatic production lines installed which is capable of producing 200 million pieces a year. The Philips Light Factory was established in 1974, now certified with ISO9001:2000 & ISO14001, its product portfolio ranges from Prefocus, Lensend to E10 miniature light bulbs.

France

Suresnes is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris. The nearest communes are Neuilly-sur-Seine, Puteaux, Rueil-Malmaison, Saint-Cloud and Boulogne-Billancourt...

Chalon-sur-Saône is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France.It is a sub-prefecture of the department. It is the largest city in the department; however, the department capital is the smaller city of Mâcon....

Chartres is a commune and capital of the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. It is located southwest of Paris.-Geography:Chartres is built on the left bank of the Eure River, on a hill crowned by its famous cathedral, the spires of which are a landmark in the surrounding country...

Lamotte-Beuvron is a commune in the Loir-et-Cher department of central France. The town is located in Sologne on the banks of the Beuvron river.Lamotte-Beuvron is served by the A71 autoroute and the Route nationale 20.-See also:* Tarte Tatin...

(architectural lighting by LEDs and professional indoor lighting), Longvic

Longvic

Longvic is a commune in the Côte-d'Or department in eastern France.-Population:-References:*...

India

Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

(Calcutta) in 1930 under the name Philips Electrical Co. (India) Pvt Ltd, comprising a staff of 75. It was a sales outlet for Philips lamps imported from overseas.

In 1938,Philips India set up its first Indian lamp-manufacturing factory in Kolkata. After the Second World War in 1948, Philips started manufacturing radios in Kolkata. In 1959, a second radio factory is established near Pune

Pune

Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...

.

In 1957, the company is converted into a public limited company, renamed "Philips India Ltd".

In 1965 on 3 April, the millionth Philips radio is manufactured in India.

In 1970 a new consumer electronics factory is started in Pimpri near Pune. (This factory was shut down in 2006.)

In 1982, Philips brought colour television transmission to India with the supply of four outdoor broadcast vans to DD National

DD National

DD National or DD1 is Doordarshan's flagship channel and the most widely available terrestrial television channel in India.-The Early Years:...

The 9th Asian Games were held from November 19, 1982 to December 4, 1982 in Delhi, India.An incredible 74 Asian and Asian Games records were broken. This was also the first Asiad to be held under the aegis of the Olympic Council of Asia.-Sports:...

Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...

(It is now called the Philips Innovation Campus).

In 2008, Philips India entered a new product category, water purifiers designed and made in India, and exported to other countries.

The Brand Trust Report, India Study, 2011 is published by Trust Research Advisory . The book is a result of a syndicated primary research on Brand Trust that generated 10,00,000 data points and 16,000 unique brands from over 10,000 hours of fieldwork conducted in 9 cities TRA’s study partners in...

, India Study, has ranked Pilips as the 25th most trusted brand in India.

Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...

) is a developer and manufacturer of Computerized Tomography (CT), diagnostic and Medical Imaging

Medical imaging

Medical imaging is the technique and process used to create images of the human body for clinical purposes or medical science...

Elscint Ltd. was an Israeli technology company that development, manufacture and sold medical imaging solutions, including: Nuclear medicine, computed tomography magnetic resonance imaging and X-ray scanners. Elscint's shares traded on the NASDAQ as well as on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. At its...

Elron Electronic Industries is a technology holding company based in Haifa Israel; since 1962 the company has been involved in setting-up, funding and developing over 30 companies and is considered one of the foundation stones of the high-tech industry in Israel...

and was acquired by Marconi Medical Systems in 1998, which was itself acquired by Philips in 2001.

Philips Semiconductors Israel, now part of NXP Semiconductors

Mexico

Monterrey , is the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León in the country of Mexico. The city is anchor to the third-largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is ranked as the ninth-largest city in the nation. Monterrey serves as a commercial center in the north of the country and is the...

Nuevo León It is located in Northeastern Mexico. It is bordered by the states of Tamaulipas to the north and east, San Luis Potosí to the south, and Coahuila to the west. To the north, Nuevo León has a 15 kilometer stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border adjacent to the U.S...

Tijuana is the largest city on the Baja California Peninsula and center of the Tijuana metropolitan area, part of the international San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan area. An industrial and financial center of Mexico, Tijuana exerts a strong influence on economics, education, culture, art, and politics...

Baja California officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is both the northernmost and westernmost state of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North...

Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...

, Chihuahua

Philips Domestic Appliances used to be manufactured in a large factory in Industrial Vallejo sector of Mexico City but was closed in 2003–2004.

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

since 1948 and has a wholly owned subsidiary, Philips Electrical industries of Pakistan Limited.
Philips Pakistan is mainly focused on three areas:

Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...

Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...

Rawalpindi , locally known as Pindi, is a city in the Pothohar region of Pakistan near Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad, in the province of Punjab. Rawalpindi is the fourth largest city in Pakistan after Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad...

.

Poland

-Economy and Industry:Nowadays Bielsko-Biała is one of the best-developed parts of Poland. It was ranked 2nd best city for business in that country by Forbes. About 5% of people are unemployed . Bielsko-Biała is famous for its textile, machine-building, and especially automotive industry...

Kętrzyn , is a town in northeastern Poland with 28,351 inhabitants . Situated in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship , Kętrzyn was previously in Olsztyn Voivodeship . It is the capital of Kętrzyn County...

Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

offers voice and data communications products, specialising in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications, IP Telephony, data networking, voice processing, command and control systems and cordless and mobile telephony. In 2006 the business was placed into a 60/40 joint venture with NEC. As of 2010 this business now forms part of NEC Unified Solutions with headquarters in Hilversum, Netherlands. Now 100% owned subsidiary of NEC Corporation of Japan.

Teeth cleaning is part of oral hygiene and involves the removal of dental plaque from teeth with the intention of preventing cavities , gingivitis, and periodontal disease. People routinely clean their own teeth by brushing and interdental cleaning, and dental hygienists can remove hardened...

Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...

Hamilton is a town in South Lanarkshire, in the west-central Lowlands of Scotland. It serves as the main administrative centre of the South Lanarkshire council area. It is the fifth-biggest town in Scotland after Paisley, East Kilbride, Livingston and Cumbernauld...

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

-Education:Hazel Grove has a number of primary schools and Hazel Grove High School, the local high school. Some do decide to go to other local high schools, such as local Marple Hall, in neighbouring village Marple. The main primary schools in the area are, Hazel Grove Primary School, Torkington...

The Metropolitan Borough of Stockport is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, in north west England, centred around the town of Stockport. It has a population of about 280,600 and includes the outyling areas of Cheadle and Cheadle Hulme, Marple, Bredbury, Reddish and Romiley...

Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...

, Hampshire, both also earlier part of Mullard. These now become part of NXP.

thumb|Typical fan heater's internal partsthumb|Overheat cutoutsA fan heater is a heater that works by using a fan to pass air over a heating element. This heats up the air, which then leaves the heater, warming up the surrounding room...

Hastings is a town and borough in the county of East Sussex on the south coast of England. The town is located east of the county town of Lewes and south east of London, and has an estimated population of 86,900....

London Carriers, logistics and transport division.

Mullard Equipment Limited (MEL) which produced products for the military

Malmesbury is a market town and civil parish located in the southern Cotswolds in the county of Wiltshire, England. Historically Malmesbury was a centre for learning and home to Malmesbury Abbey...

, Wiltshire

United States

Philips' American headquarters is Philips Electronics North America Corporation, 3000 Minuteman Rd., Andover, Massachusetts. For many years, the North American headquarters was located in New York, but with the company's footprint in healthcare ever increasing, it made sense to co-locate its headquarters office with its largest business sector (healthcare).

Somerset is a census-designated place and unincorporated area located at the easternmost section within Franklin Township, in Somerset County, New Jersey. At the 2000 United States Census, the CDP population was 23,040...

Danville is a city in and the county seat of Boyle County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 16,218 at the 2010 census.Danville is the principal city of the Danville Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Boyle and Lincoln counties....

Bath is a village in Steuben County, New York, United States. The population was 5,641 at the 2000 census. Bath is the county seat of Steuben County. The community was named either for the English city or for Lady Bath, daughter of William Pulteney, one of the original landowners.The Village of...

Salina is a city in and the county seat of Saline County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 47,707. Located in one of the world's largest wheat-producing areas, Salina is a regional trade center for north-central Kansas...

Paris, Texas is a city located northeast of the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex in Lamar County, Texas, in the United States. It is situated in Northeast Texas at the western edge of the Piney Woods. Physiographically, these regions are part of the West Gulf Coastal Plain. In 1900, 9,358 people lived...

Ontario is a city located in San Bernardino County, California, United States, 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Located in the western part of the Inland Empire region, it lies just east of the Los Angeles county line and is part of the Greater Los Angeles Area...

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....

Philips Healthcare is headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts. The North American sales organization is based in Bothell, Washington

Bothell, Washington

Bothell is a city located in King and Snohomish Counties in the state of Washington. It is part of the Seattle metropolitan area. The population was 33,505 as of the 2010 census...

Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...

Foster City is an affluent planned city located in San Mateo County, California, 94404. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 30,567. Forbes ranked Foster City #10 on their 2009 list of America's Top 25 Towns to Live Well. Money has also recognized Foster City multiple times as...

Milpitas is a city in Santa Clara County, California. It is a suburb of the major city of San Jose, California. It is located with San Jose to its south and Fremont to its north, at the eastern end of State Route 237 and generally between Interstates 680 and 880 which run roughly north/south...

Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...

Stamford is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 122,643, making it the fourth largest city in the state and the eighth largest city in New England...

Briarcliff Manor is a village in Westchester County in the state of New York. It is shared between the towns of Mount Pleasant and Ossining, and lies entirely within the ZIP code of 10510...

.

In 2007, Philips has entered into a definitive merger agreement with North American luminaires company Genlyte Group Incorporated, which provides the company with a leading position in the North American luminaires (also known as ˜lighting fixtures"), controls and related products for a wide variety of applications, including solid state lighting. The company also acquired Respironics, which was a significant gain for its healthcare sectore.

On 21 February 2008 Philips had completed its acquisition of VISICU Baltimore, Maryland through the merger of its indirect wholly owned subsidiary into VISICU. As a result of that merger, VISICU has become an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Philips. VISICU was the creator of the eICU concept of the use of Telemedicine from a centralized facility to monitor and care for ICU patients.

Philips has received many awards for its design, innovation and business standards. It is considered by many as one of the world's leading innovators in technology, particularly for healthcare, lighting and consumer products.

Consumer electronics product timeline

Philishave was the brand name for the electric shavers manufactured by the Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care unit of Philips . In recent years, Philips had extended the Philishave brand to include hair clippers, beard trimmers and beard shapers...

The Compact Cassette, often referred to as audio cassette, cassette tape, cassette, or simply tape, is a magnetic tape sound recording format. It was designed originally for dictation, but improvements in fidelity led the Compact Cassette to supplant the Stereo 8-track cartridge and reel-to-reel...

LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...

player, using technology invented in the 1960s.

1978, introduced the Philips Videopac G7000 (pictured at right), a home video game console developed by its Magnavox

Magnavox

Magnavox is a US electronics company founded by Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen, who invented the moving-coil loudspeaker in 1915 at their lab in Napa, California. They formed Magnavox in 1917 in order to market their inventions....

division. Marketed in the United States as the Odyssey2 console. Variations of the console are sold worldwide through 1984.

CD-i, or Compact Disc Interactive, is the name of an interactive multimedia CD player developed and marketed by Royal Philips Electronics N.V. CD-i also refers to the multimedia Compact Disc standard used by the CD-i console, also known as Green Book, which was developed by Philips and Sony...

, the Compact Disc Interactive system which had many video-game console-type features, but was not a sales success .

Digital Compact Cassette was a magnetic tape sound recording format introduced by Philips and Matsushita in late 1992 and pitched as a successor to the standard analog cassette. It was also a direct competitor to Sony's MiniDisc but neither format toppled the then ubiquitous analog cassette...

The Atari Jaguar is a video game console that was released by Atari Corporation in 1993. It was the last to be marketed under the Atari brand until the release of the Atari Flashback in 2004. It was designed to surpass the Mega Drive/Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Panasonic...

The Atari Jaguar CD or Jag CD is a CD-ROM peripheral for the Atari Jaguar video game console.Late in the life span of the company, Atari released this long-promised CD-ROM unit. The unit hit shelves on September 11, 1995 and retailed for $149.95. The device sat atop the Jaguar console, snapping...

Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...

Super Audio CD is a high-resolution, read-only optical disc for audio storage. Sony and Philips Electronics jointly developed the technology, and publicized it in 1999. It is designated as the Scarlet Book standard. Sony and Philips previously collaborated to define the Compact Disc standard...

Senseo is a registered trademark for a coffee brewing system from Dutch companies Philips and Douwe Egberts, a subsidiary of Sara Lee Corporation...

coffeemaker, first in the Netherlands and from 2002 onwards, in other countries across Europe. It produces coffee by brewing from custom-made pads containing coffee grounds. The original Senseo pads are produced by Douwe Egberts

Douwe Egberts

Douwe Egberts is a Dutch corporation that processes and trades coffee, tea, and other groceries. Its full name is Douwe Egberts Koninklijke Tabaksfabriek-Koffiebranderijen-Theehandel NV, which translates as "Douwe Egberts Royal Tobacco Factory - Coffee Roasters - Tea Traders, Plc."...

A "Mirror TV" or "TV Mirror" is any device that is convertible from a television to a mirror. Mirror TVs are often utilized to save space or discreetly conceal unsightly electronics in living areas such as bedrooms and living rooms...

Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...

WOWvx is a type of monitor screen and software tools manufactured by Philips which offers 3D images without glasses for several viewers at a time. Philips sells professionals 3D displays for the advertising, entertainment and 3D visualization markets. WOWvx uses the 3D format called 2D-plus-depth...

The Philips Cinema 21:9 TV is the world's first LCD television using a 64:27 aspect ratio , with a resolution of 2560×1080. It is designed to show films recorded in CinemaScope or the modern anamorphic format of 2.37:1...

in a widescreen mode for HDTVs with an LCD display using the aspect ratio.

Healthcare products

Clinical Informatics

-Introduction:Imaging Informatics, also known as Radiology Informatics or Medical Imaging Informatics, is a subspecialty of Biomedical Informatics that aims to improve the efficiency, accuracy, usability and reliability of medical imaging services within the healthcare enterprise...

Fluoroscopy is an imaging technique commonly used by physicians to obtain real-time moving images of the internal structures of a patient through the use of a fluoroscope. In its simplest form, a fluoroscope consists of an X-ray source and fluorescent screen between which a patient is placed...

In nuclear medicine procedures, elemental radionuclides are combined with other elements to form chemical compounds, or else combined with existing pharmaceutical compounds, to form radiopharmaceuticals. These radiopharmaceuticals, once administered to the patient, can localize to specific organs...

Positron emission tomography is nuclear medicine imaging technique that produces a three-dimensional image or picture of functional processes in the body. The system detects pairs of gamma rays emitted indirectly by a positron-emitting radionuclide , which is introduced into the body on a...

Radiography is the use of X-rays to view a non-uniformly composed material such as the human body. By using the physical properties of the ray an image can be developed which displays areas of different density and composition....

Ultrasound is cyclic sound pressure with a frequency greater than the upper limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is thus not separated from "normal" sound based on differences in physical properties, only the fact that humans cannot hear it. Although this limit varies from person to person, it is...

Patient Care and Clinical Informatics

Blood pressure is the pressure exerted by circulating blood upon the walls of blood vessels, and is one of the principal vital signs. When used without further specification, "blood pressure" usually refers to the arterial pressure of the systemic circulation. During each heartbeat, BP varies...

Capnography is the monitoring of the concentration or partial pressure of carbon dioxide in the respiratory gases. Its main development has been as a monitoring tool for use during anaesthesia and intensive care. It is usually presented as a graph of expiratory plotted against time, or, less...

Pulse oximetry is a non-invasive method allowing the monitoring of the oxygenation of a patient's hemoglobin.A sensor is placed on a thin part of the patient's body, usually a fingertip or earlobe, or in the case of an infant, across a foot....

Temperature

Transcutaneous Gases

Ventilation

ViewForum

Xcelera

XIRIS

Xper Information Management

Environmental record

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

's 2011 Guide to Greener Electronics that ranks electronics manufacturers on sustainability, climate and energy and how green their products are, Philips ranks 5th place (down from 3rd place) with a score of 4.5/10. The company was the top scorer in the Energy section due to its energy advocacy work calling upon the EU to adpot a 30% reduction for greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. It is also praised for its new products which are free from PVC

Polyvinyl chloride

Polyvinyl chloride, commonly abbreviated PVC, is a thermoplastic polymer. It is a vinyl polymer constructed of repeating vinyl groups having one hydrogen replaced by chloride. Polyvinyl chloride is the third most widely produced plastic, after polyethylene and polypropylene. PVC is widely used in...

plastic and BFRs. However, the guide criticizes Phillips' sourcing of fibres for paper, arguing it must develop a paper procurement policy which excludes suppliers involved in deforestation and illegal logging.
Philips have made some considerable progress since 2007 (when it was first ranked in this guide), in particular by supporting the Individual Producer Responsibility principle, which means that the company is accepting the responsibility for the toxic impacts of its products on e-waste dumps around the world.

For its "green products", Philips is using Philips Green Logo, which identifies products that have a significantly better environmental performance than their competitors or predecessors. Also, the company is running the EcoVision4 initiative in which it committed to a number of environmentally positive improvements by 2012.

In 2011, Philips won a $10 million cash prize from the Department of Energy's L-Prize competition, which rewarded the company with first place for its LED replacement bulbs.

See also

A fluorescent lamp or fluorescent tube is a gas-discharge lamp that uses electricity to excite mercury vapor. The excited mercury atoms produce short-wave ultraviolet light that then causes a phosphor to fluoresce, producing visible light. A fluorescent lamp converts electrical power into useful...

Philips Classics Records was started in the 1980s as the new classics record label for Philips Records. It was successful with artists including Alfred Brendel, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St...

Philips Records is a record label that was founded by Dutch electronics company Philips. It was started by "Philips Phonographische Industrie" in 1950. Recordings were made with popular artists of various nationalities and also with classical artists from Germany, France and Holland. Philips also...

SpeechMagic is an industrial grade platform for capturing information in a digital format. It has been developed by Philips Speech Recognition Systems of Vienna, Austria. SpeechMagic features large-vocabulary speech recognition as well as a number of services aimed at supporting “accurate,...